Soda Jerks (1925) User Reviews

Soda Jerks was an interesting Mutt and Jeff cartoon I saw on YouTube

[tavm · 5/10 · 29 August 2008]

In this silent Mutt and Jeff cartoon, Jeff puts some pep liquid instead of the usual syrup in the sodas that Mutt serves to the customers in the malt shop. As a result, they all jump up and down and act a little more enthusiastic than usual going outside. Eventually when Mutt forces the drink on Jeff, Jeff manages to chase the police away and destroys their paddy wagon before giving Mutt a literal spin over his head! While it's a little repetitious seeing various customers and animals doing literally the same thing again and again, occasionally there's a little variety in the results like having a dog (or cat) having his legs elongated! The print I watched on YouTube was actually filmed on a projected screen so I heard the whirring that went with that but otherwise it was a good presentation of this rare animated short. Worth a look for animated fans as well as those of comic strip characters Mutt and Jeff.

Mutt and Jeff...the original drug kingpins!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 29 September 2021]

"Soda Jerks" is a very strange cartoon for two reasons. One is that although it's a very old cartoon, the copy I found was in color, as decades later, someone decided to color in this black & white cartoon...and they did it by hand, not using computers. Oddly, they colored the police uniforms green! Another is the plot....which is just plain weird!!

Mutt and Jeff are working as soda jerks in a drug store. Mutt is treating Jeff badly, ordering him about, so Jeff tries to get even by spiking the syrup with some sort of pep tonic. The results on the customers is like crack cocaine...and the folks start dancing about and assaulting cops! What's next? See this weird film if you like...or not.

The cartoon is probably one you won't see on TV because it's a bit archaic AND it sends a confusing message about drugs....mostly that they are cool and help you beat up cops! Truly odd but watchable...but the bongo music they added later is pretty annoying and strange.

Catch This In Remastered Color

[verbusen · 10/10 · 18 April 2024]

There are some Mutt and Jeff haters out here in the 100 years later world. The IMdb score is again a low under 5.5 score. I really enjoyed this in its repackaged form using whizzo sound effects and in color, I'm sure I'd also like the original, I guess I'm a Mutt and Jeff fan. I notice a lot of similarity to the later Tom and Jerry cartoons (the cat and mouse ones and also the human cartoon team from the 1930s), Jerry the mouse even reminds me of Jeff here when Mutt keeps disrespecting him, first with the girl Jeff is trying to attract and then Mutt calling Jeff, "boy". Jeff is just really steaming angry (much like Jerry would do) and this is used as the reason why Jeff accidently does a switcheroo with the pep drops instead of the soda syrup. Those pep drops say on the label 2 drops per dose, so when the customers get 500 drops in their soda instead of syrup, you can understand what happens in a cartoon next. Then Jeff has a serious altercation with the world and that includes a dozen police. Hilarity ensues. Because many of the themes were used in cartoons later, I'm giving this a 10 out of 10. This was released originally in silent black and white and then repackaged in a film colorized with dialog around 1973, called The Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff and shown with other colorized M&J shorts and spliced together a couple of ways with a belly dancer segment once and shown at the 16MM circuit theaters. Then they repackaged it again as just silent with sound effect colorized shorts separately for TV sale. The film with the belly dancers is horrible but may be of interest to obscure film lovers. I think I saw it on a Saturday morning as a kid in 1973 and fell asleep, lol. 10 of 10 for the silent versions!